Itik-Itik Dance: Origin, Meaning, Steps and Costume
A baptismal party in a barrio of Cantilan, on Mindanao’s northeastern coast, is where the Itik-Itik dance reportedly began. A young dancer named Kanang got swept up in the music, spotted ducks near the water, and copied their waddle. The crowd laughed, then copied her, and a party trick turned into one of the most recognized folk dances in the Philippines.
Itik-Itik takes its name from itik, the Filipino and Visayan word for duck. Every step in the routine still points back to that single afternoon of mimicry: the short waddling steps, the flapping arms, the sudden dips toward the floor. This guide traces the Itik-Itik dance from that baptismal party to the classroom, covering its origin, its steps, its music, its costume, and its place in the Philippine folk dance classification system.
At a Glance
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Region | Caraga Region, northeastern Mindanao (Surigao provinces) |
| Group | Surigaonon people |
| Props | None; no equipment needed |
| Music | Dejado tune, played by a rondalla, brisk two-beat rhythm |
| Dancers | Solo, small group, or full class; mostly women, also mixed and all-male casts |
| Occasion | Began at a baptismal party; now school programs, fiestas, and competitions |
Kanang, the Sibay Dance, and a Baptism in Cantilan
Itik-Itik did not appear out of nowhere. It grew out of an older dance called Sibay, which dancers performed to a tune named Dejado. Sibay itself was a bird dance, and the Filipino dance historian Reynaldo Alejandro traced its roots to the island of Samar.
The version most people know today comes from a baptismal party in a barrio of Cantilan, a coastal town on Mindanao’s eastern shoulder. Kanang was performing the Sibay to the Dejado tune when she noticed ducks paddling near the water. She started copying their short, choppy walk and the way they flick water across their backs. The guests found it funny enough to imitate, and what began as one dancer’s joke became a set routine within a few seasons.
Key point
A 1668 account by the Jesuit missionary Ignacio Alzina describes a bird-imitating dance called Sabay that was popular in the region, so copying a bird’s movement on the dance floor predates Itik-Itik by more than two centuries.
Cantilan sits in Surigao del Sur today, but that provincial line did not exist when Kanang danced. Surigao was a single province until 1960, when it split into Surigao del Norte and Surigao del Sur. Both provinces share the same Surigaonon roots, which is why Itik-Itik is claimed by Surigao del Norte as much as by the town where the story is set.
From Cantilan the dance spread through nearby Carmen, Lanuza, and Carrascal, with each town adding small variations to the footwork.
A Cantilan native named Antonino Arreza later wrote lyrics for the Dejado tune in Cantilangnon, the local name for the Surigaonon dialect spoken in the area. National Artist for Dance Francisca Reyes-Aquino later recorded the steps formally, giving the dance a fixed place in the catalog of Philippine folk dances she spent decades assembling.
What the Duck Steps in Itik-Itik Actually Represent
The Itik-Itik dance is a mimetic dance, meaning every step imitates something else rather than telling a story with characters. In this case, the something else is a duck going about its day: walking on land, wading into a pond, flapping its wings, and splashing water across its back.
The footwork carries most of the imitation, with each step keyed to a specific duck movement:
| Step | Duck movement copied | How it’s performed |
|---|---|---|
| Footwork | Walking on land | Short, quick steps with slightly bent knees |
| Arm flaps | Settling its feathers | Fists closed, arms bent at shoulder height, flapped in short bursts |
| Torso dip | Splashing water on its back | Quick dip of the torso with a small backward flick of the hand |
| Pecking gesture | Feeding at the shoreline | Head tilts down sharply on an accented beat (some versions only) |
The Philippines’ National Commission for Culture and the Arts groups Itik-Itik among the country’s bird-inspired dances, part of a wider pattern in which an archipelago full of rivers, marshes, and rice paddies shaped dances built around birds and fowl.
None of the Itik-Itik movements need a partner to make sense, which is part of why the dance works so well as a solo or small-group number. A dancer can perform the routine alone and still land the same visual joke that made Kanang’s guests laugh at that baptismal party: a person, briefly, turning into a duck.
The Music: Dejado and a Brisk Two-Beat Rhythm
Itik-Itik moves to a tune called Dejado, the same melody that once accompanied the older Sibay dance. Traditionally a rondalla, an ensemble of plucked string instruments such as the bandurria, laud, and guitar, provides the accompaniment.
Tip
A single guitar and a few voices can carry the Dejado tune just as easily as a full rondalla, so performers do not need a formal ensemble for a small gathering.
The dance runs in a quick two-beat measure that matches the short, clipped nature of the footwork. There is little room to hesitate between steps, since each measure cycles fast enough to keep the duck-like movements looking sharp rather than slow.
Philippine dance had already absorbed outside influence by the time Itik-Itik took shape: rustic, imitative dances of the type Itik-Itik belongs to picked up the tempo of the jota and the polka as Spanish social dances blended with local movement during the colonial period, a change documented in the country’s cultural dance history.
The lyrics that usually accompany the tune, credited to Cantilan native Antonino Arreza, are sung in Cantilangnon, the local Surigaonon dialect. Audiences who do not understand the words can still follow the dance, since the music’s phrasing lines up almost beat for beat with the duck gestures on stage.
The Costume: Baro’t Saya, Patadyong, and Barong Tagalog
Costume choices for Itik-Itik follow general Visayan barrio wear rather than one fixed uniform, so troupes and schools vary the details.
Female dancers usually wear one of a few options:
- Baro’t saya, a blouse paired with a long skirt
- Patadyong, a wraparound tube skirt often woven in a checkered pattern common across the Visayas
- Balintawak, a version with a shorter, more colorful skirt and stiffened, flared sleeves
Whichever skirt is used, dancers usually knot a bandanna over the head or around the neck, a small nod to the rural, working dress the story is set in.
Male dancers typically wear a camisa de chino, a loose, collarless shirt, or a barong tagalog, the more formal embroidered shirt worn untucked over the trousers, paired with plain white trousers. A brightly colored neckerchief tied at the throat completes the look and gives the male costume a splash of color to match the women’s skirts.
None of the pieces are unique to Itik-Itik. They belong to the same wardrobe used across many Visayan and rural Luzon folk dances, which fits the story: the costume signals ordinary barrio life, not a special occasion outfit, because the dance itself grew out of an ordinary party rather than a ceremony built around it.
The Region and Language Behind Itik-Itik
Itik-Itik belongs to the Surigaonon people, an ethnic and language group native to the Caraga Region in northeastern Mindanao. Caraga takes its name from Calagan, an old term used for the area during the Spanish colonial period, and covers five provincial-level areas:
- Surigao del Norte
- Surigao del Sur
- Agusan del Norte
- Agusan del Sur
- Dinagat Islands
Surigaonon is a Visayan language, part of the southern Bisayan branch that also includes Cebuano, Butuanon, and Tausug. It counts as a distinct language rather than a Cebuano dialect, even though the two share enough vocabulary that Cebuano speakers can often follow along. Surigaonon had about 500,000 speakers as of a 2009 count, and in Surigao del Norte specifically, roughly 95 percent of residents use it as their primary language.
That regional identity matters for how the dance gets described. Popular accounts often label the dance simply as one from Surigao del Norte, since that is the better known of the two Surigao provinces and the one most tied to the Surigaonon name today.
The more precise, town-level story places its origin in Cantilan, which sits across the provincial line in Surigao del Sur. Both descriptions point to the same cultural home: the Surigaonon-speaking towns that once made up a single, undivided Surigao province before 1960.
How Itik-Itik Is Taught in Philippine Classrooms Today
Itik-Itik has a long-running role in Philippine physical education, largely because of the woman who documented it. Francisca Reyes-Aquino began collecting Philippine folk dances in the 1920s and spent decades helping shape the physical education programs that put those dances in front of students nationwide.
Today the dance sits inside MAPEH, the subject that combines Music, Arts, Physical Education, and Health in Philippine public schools. Grade 6 physical education modules commonly include a dedicated Itik-Itik unit, often framed as a lesson on physical fitness taught through folk dance, where students learn the footwork alongside coordination, balance, and basic cardiovascular effort. Senior high school physical education classes revisit it too, usually inside broader units on Philippine traditional and ethnic dance.
Teaching the dance in a classroom means simplifying it. Instructors typically break the choreography into short repeating patterns, drilling the arm and leg movements separately before combining them to the music, and slowing the tempo for beginners before working back up to performance speed. That is part of why the dance has stayed a curriculum staple for generations instead of fading into a rarely performed showcase piece.
Tip
Because the steps need no partner or special equipment, one teacher can run an entire class through the Itik-Itik routine at once, which is why it remains a MAPEH staple.
Where Itik-Itik Fits in the Folk Dance Classification System
Francisca Reyes-Aquino built the classification system that most Philippine textbooks still use, and Itik-Itik fits into it along two different lines.
By geographic reach, Reyes-Aquino split dances into national dances, performed and recognized across the islands, and local dances, tied to a specific town or province. Itik-Itik started as a local dance rooted in Cantilan and the surrounding Surigao towns.
Its popularity has since carried it into classrooms and stage shows nationwide, but its origin story keeps it filed as a local, regionally specific dance rather than a national one, unlike Cariñosa, which spread widely enough to earn recognition as closer to a national courtship dance. By purpose, Reyes-Aquino grouped Philippine folk dances into several categories:
- Occupational
- Ceremonial
- Courtship
- Wedding
- Festival
- War
- Game
- Comic
Itik-Itik belongs to the comic and mimetic side of that list. It does not tell a love story or reenact a harvest the way an occupational dance would. It exists to make an audience laugh by turning a person into a duck for a few minutes, which places it alongside other animal-imitation dances rather than alongside romantic dances like Cariñosa or equipment-based dances like Tinikling, which uses clashing bamboo poles instead of a bird to build its routine.
Reyes-Aquino also classified dances by tempo and by formation:
- Tempo: a brisk two-beat rhythm, among the faster dances in her catalog
- Formation: no fixed partner, so schools can stage it as a solo, a small group, or a full class routine
A single afternoon at a baptismal party in Cantilan turned into a routine taught in classrooms across the Philippines more than a century later. That is the unusual part of the Itik-Itik dance’s story: most folk dances trace back to seasons of ritual or work, while this one traces back to one dancer noticing ducks by a pond and deciding to copy them on the spot.
The steps have been refined, the costume has settled into a recognizable set of pieces, and Reyes-Aquino’s documentation gave the dance a permanent place in the folk dance catalog. What has not changed is the joke at its center: a person moving like a duck, well enough that a room full of strangers wanted to try it too.
Itik-Itik is one of dozens of regional dances still performed and taught across the country, and our Philippine traditions coverage maps out where the others come from.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Kanang in the Itik-Itik story?
Kanang was a young dancer performing at a baptismal party in a barrio of Cantilan. According to local folklore, she was dancing the older Sibay dance when she noticed ducks near the water and began copying their movements. Her improvisation became the basis for the dance now known as Itik-Itik.
What does the word Itik-Itik mean?
Itik is the Filipino and Visayan word for duck, and the repeated form Itik-Itik roughly means duck-like or acting like a duck. The name describes what the dance does rather than naming a place or a person.
Is Itik-Itik performed only by women?
No. Women perform it most often in traditional accounts, and school programs commonly cast female students in the routine, but mixed groups and all-male casts perform it too, especially in stage shows and dance competitions where the mimicry, not the performer’s gender, is the point.
How is Itik-Itik different from Tinikling?
Tinikling uses two long bamboo poles that dancers step between as they clap together, and it originated in Leyte. Itik-Itik needs no equipment, imitates a duck instead of dodging poles, and comes from Surigao rather than Leyte. Both are local Philippine folk dances, but their footwork and props are unrelated.
Where can Itik-Itik still be seen performed today?
It appears regularly in school MAPEH programs, town fiesta stage shows, and folk dance competitions across the Surigao provinces and beyond. Cultural events in Cantilan and nearby towns still feature it, and touring folk dance companies include it in their repertoire.
Works Cited
“Francisca Reyes-Aquino.” National Commission for Culture and the Arts, ncca.gov.ph, n.d., https://ncca.gov.ph/about-culture-and-arts/culture-profile/national-artists-of-the-philippines/francisca-reyes-aquino/.
“Philippine Ethnic Dances.” National Commission for Culture and the Arts, ncca.gov.ph, n.d., https://ncca.gov.ph/about-ncca-3/subcommissions/subcommission-on-the-arts-sca/dance/philippine-ethnic-dances/.
“Philippine Dance in the Spanish Period.” National Commission for Culture and the Arts, ncca.gov.ph, n.d., https://ncca.gov.ph/about-ncca-3/subcommissions/subcommission-on-the-arts-sca/dance/philippine-dance-in-the-spanish-period/.
“Itik-itik.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, n.d., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itik-itik.
“Surigaonon Language.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, n.d., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surigaonon_language.
